HEARTLESS dictator Kim Jong-un has blocked Christmas reunions for Korean families separated by the peninsula’s border - claiming it is a “black-hearted” plot by the US.

Kim Jong-un has accused the USA of trying to trick him with family reunions

In a fiery editorial in a Pyongyang-based, state-run newspaper, he claimed the scheme was “a pretext for the smear campaign” against North Korea’s human rights record.

The propaganda rag said if America was really interested in reuniting families they should drop their anti-North Korean policy and break off their alliance with South Korea.

The opinion piece said: “The [family reunion scheme] is nothing but a crafty trick to cover up the true colours of the US as a criminal who caused the issue of the separated families and relatives and has prevented them from having reunions with their families and relatives, and to escalate the anti-DPRK ‘human rights’ racket.

Photographer Eric Lafforgue ventured to North Korea six times. Thanks to digital memory cards, he was able to save photos that was forbidden to take inside the segregated state

Taking pictures in the DMZ is easy, but if you come too close to the soldiers, they stop you

“If the US had neither blocked the implementation of the historic inter-Korean declarations nor incited the south Korean puppet group to the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north in order to prevent the improvement of the inter-Korean ties, the wishes of the Koreans in the north, the south and abroad to see their own flesh and blood would have come true.”

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Family reunion schemes allow Koreans to see their families for the first time in decades

The editorial blasted America as “black-hearted” for attempting to reunite family members who may not have seen each other for decades - and accused the US of attempting to “abuse” the situation for their own gain.

The bizarre rant continued: “The passage of the resolution was prompted by the black-hearted intention of the US to abuse this issue as a pretext for the smear campaign over the DPRK ‘human rights issue’.

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Kim Jong-un accused the USA of "abusing" the situation

“Such action as rubbing salt into the wound of the Korean residents in the U.S. in an attempt to attain its ambition of aggression for stifling the DPRK is an intolerable mockery and insult to the Korean nation.”

It concluded by telling America to “abandon” its current treatment of North Korea and to instead turn its aim on the South.

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Korean families are separated by an impenetrable border

The piece finished: “The US should abandon its anachronistic anti-DPRK policy and refrain from inciting the south Korean puppet group to the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north, if it truly is interested in the reunion of separated families and relatives for US-resident Koreans.”